I update my electrification slides for the Wisconsin Public Utilities Institute’s Utility Basics course every year with the latest technologies, sales data, and energy, commodity, and equipment/vehicle prices. Year over year, electricity prices at my home have increased 15%, for now, based on fuel alone. That is minuscule compared to what is proposed in the Northeast. EnergyCentral.com linked to a Patch article that said Eversource Massachusetts is filing for a 38% hike on top of a 22% jump last winter. National Grid is filing for an unprecedented (in my world) “increase from last winter's 14.82 cents per kilowatt-hour rate to…
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This week I’m going to my news stack, starting with an interesting article from Zerohedge - How Far are We from Phasing out Coal. Answer: a long way and getting longer. CCP’s Exploding Coal Fleet Coal-fired power generation jumped 9% in 2021, to an all-time high. That increase is the biggest leap since I was in Ha Skewl and the DeLorean was hot. How is coal consumption growing worldwide today? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They continue to build and fire huge coal plants with zero reservation (or pollution control). The difference between governors and the governed in the U.S.…
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In this week's Energy Rant, we're covering the final segment of good, perfect, and real carbon targets.There are two sources of carbon-free energy. First, we have the category of renewable with wind, solar, hydro, and some geothermal. Second, we have nuclear. Oops – third, we have efficiency and demand management. The electricity market is bizarre to me. Last week I crudely explained how the regional transmission authorities (RTO) and their twins, independent system operators (ISO), balance the grid in real-time. Power supplied must match demand with very tight tolerances of voltage and frequency at all times. The chart below shows…
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Back in the day when I was in the nuclear Navy, Greenpeace was not so infrequently pulling stunts like running their zodiacs up on the top of submarine hulls to make their unfounded statements of radiation releases to the environment. Since 9/11, you can bet they stopped this practice. Even back in the early 1990s the hatch was guarded by a burly guy sporting a short barrel shotgun with the largest shell chamber I’ve ever seen. Stopping power. The fact is, the US Navy runs the cleanest nuclear plants in the world with thousands of operating reactor YEARS and not…
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